This paper examines the welfare consequences of social safety nets in developing economies relative to developed economies. Using panel surveys of households in Indonesia and the United States, we find that food consumption falls by approximately ten percent when individuals become unemployed in both countries. This finding suggests that introducing a formal social insurance program would have small benefits in terms of reducing consumption fluctuations in Indonesia. However, in contrast with households in the U.S., Indonesians use costly methods such as reducing human capital investment to smooth consumption. The primary benefit of social insurance in developing countries may therefore come not from consumption smoothing itself but from reducing the use of inefficient smoothing methods.
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Paper provided by National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc in its series NBER Working Papers with number
11708.
Length: Date of creation: Oct 2005 Date of revision: Handle: RePEc:nbr:nberwo:11708
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References listed on IDEAS Please report citation or reference errors to , or , if you are the registered author of the cited work, log in to your RePEc Author Service profile, click on "citations" and make appropriate adjustments.:
Krueger, Alan B. & Meyer, Bruce D., 2002.
"Labor supply effects of social insurance,"
Handbook of Public Economics,
in: A. J. Auerbach & M. Feldstein (ed.), Handbook of Public Economics, edition 1, volume 4, chapter 33, pages 2327-2392
Elsevier.
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